


The Magnificent Departure of Margaret Emmaline Granger (And How She Got Back!)

by MSW_Skule



Series: Knowing the unknowable [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breakfast, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Taboo, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MSW_Skule/pseuds/MSW_Skule
Summary: Hermione Granger's dad has a cousin that's a witch.
Series: Knowing the unknowable [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083926
Kudos: 5





	The Magnificent Departure of Margaret Emmaline Granger (And How She Got Back!)

Margaret Granger was a salary-woman, working at a bank in London. She hardly ever drank, and was considered for a raise every year like clockwork. 

She was also a witch.

Not a wand waving witch, or an awful child eating hag, nor a mistress to magic subtle and refined, but a witch of mundane, even common understanding of the world. She burnt sage and danced at Samhain, but no matter the respect she showed, her hands were worldly and would not bend the laws of the world.

Dan Granger, her cousin of the dental sciences who had written but twice in the decade they had each worked in London, had recently asked after her as he and his wife had an absurdly curious child by the name of Hermione, who really wanted to meet a "real" witch.

So Marge took a vacation. Her first in three years.

She assumed the child would be bookish, as Dan and their grandfather had been, but had little understanding of how bookish the child truly was.

Two trunks worth of the magical and mystical in books old and new, she had brought and before introductions could be made, the girl was off, questioning all that she knew and all she knew she didn't know.

* * *

Hermione Granger was bucktoothed and red of face from asking question after question as her father introduced his wide-eyed cousin (the witch!) and could hardly pay attention to pleasantries with so many interesting bobbles and things hanging on the walls. 

"Hermione, dearest, would you like to come inside?" Auntie Emmaline asked. 

Hermione started, whipping her head back to her aunt, "o-oh of course!" She said, hopping through the door. "Sorry I got distracted and-"

"That's quite alright dear, they'll be plenty of time to look around and ask questions after a spot of lunch". Her aunt interrupted her, not unkindly. She gestured down the hall, "you'll have claim to the last door on the right while you're staying, why don't you set your things down and we'll eat and dive right in".

* * *

Lunch took near two hours to get through. 'A nine year old child has rung me out like a cheap washcloth'. Marge thought to herself.

"Auntie," the girl spoke, unsure, her face scrunched up, looking entirely too young for such broad thoughts, "do spirits have to obey the laws of physics?" Her eyes turn up hopeful for some base insight into the real and true.

A chill ran up Marge's spine, "Well I suppose they must obey _**some**_ laws of physics," the younger Granger's forehead crinkled in response," though they may be physics we don't yet know." At that Hermione's eyes fly wide and she turns and dives toward the twin(in baggage only) trunks with abandon, pulling book after book out. Tomes battered and crinkled, Manuals and magazines, and more curious still, four, now five books all with blurry names. 

Though, the closer she looked, "Auntie?" Hermione whispered, breaking Marge from her own inner thoughts. "I found the book."

Smiling, Marge guided them both back to the table, though she didn't remember getting up in the first place. "Let's see what it has to say then!"

* * *

After Hermione had been asleep for a bit, Marge gathered up the five books and set them on the table, under the light. Still the names were blurred. There was an itch just behind her eyes, as the titles straightened out. "Potions Moste Potent, The Blackest Arts of Magik, Speech of the World, Courting the Courts, and An Introduction to Alchemical Processes. Yes this looks like proper reading for a nine year old. Well done Dan, you absolute wanker." She rolled her eyes, her moderate ire spent willingly, she picked up 'Courting the Courts' and began reading.

* * *

Hermione woke to the smell of burnt carrots.

Half-asleep as she was, she brushed her teeth before going to the kitchen, seeking to offer her assistance in cooking breakfast.

Margaret was standing at the stove, her antlers were well trimmed and sharpened and her fur was glossy and full of life, and the stamp of her hooves on the kitchen tile sounded just - Hermione Granger stopped short of greeting her aunt. Something was strange, wrong, distorted. Her head felt as though she was immersed in jam. Burnt carrots and celery filled her nose. Hermione shook her head and concentrated. She glanced at the thing's hateful eyes and knew it was not her aunt.

It cajoled her and tried to introduce itself, and asked her name over and over in the span of a moment. But she would not name it. She refused it.

"You are not Auntie Emmaline!" She screamed as a wave of distortion, here a rainbow, there a black deep as sin, washed over the room before slamming into the false one. And there was her aunt huddled and shaking, gasping and sobbing.

She ran and hugged her aunt to her, looking around fearfully for that which was. "Name it not!" Her aunt sobbed into her shoulder ere wrenching her face round to look her in the eye. Kind eyes, full of fear but kind, took Hermione in and Auntie Emmaline sighed in relief. "You saved me, dearest Hermione. Now we must purify the house and all that we own." The two stood shaken, but willful. 

Salt and sage, word and thought, mundane and magic.

* * *

The books sat still on the table.

Hermione and Emmaline sat and consumed all the knowledge they could of those taboos before burning 'Courting the Courts'. 

As they sat in front of the fire, Emmaline could not help herself, "Well now we know the laws of physics that spirits follow." She smiled at Hermione, "Next question?"

Hermione's eyes lit with the light of discovery, and on they spoke and learned through the next week and a half.

* * *

Dan Granger kept close contact with his cousin Emmaline Granger after his daughter came home with even more enthusiasm for learning.

And when a letter from Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry addressed to Hermione was received, Em was the first person they called.

**Author's Note:**

> Hermione's second cousin is a Squib (not that anyone knows that). Hence why little rituals and speaking with the Fae are so readily obtainable for Em.
> 
> Magic sure can be terrifying, yeah?
> 
> I'm still going to go back and edit and smooth out everything I post at some point. This is the second of three prologues before the story proper starts.


End file.
